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Monday, October 17, 2011

Similar
to Joseph’s famous coat, “Dancing in the
Shadows of Love” is a text of many layers. Many of these layers only became
obvious to me once I had finished writing the story. But there were three major
themes I deliberately focused on when writing the draft versions.

The first of these themes is:

War versus Peace

Unspecified,
but ever present in the background of "Dancing in the Shadows of Love", The War encapsulates a major theme of the story: that humans
must find peace and unity on a personal level, before they can find it on a
universal or national level.

In
a spiritual sense, every war concerns the struggle of light against darkness
(good vs evil); war can be a means of reducing disorder to order; war echoes
the sacrifice made in order to re-instate the original order in both the material
plane (real wars) and the spiritual plane.

On
the spiritual plane war symbolizes humankind’s internal struggle with duality:
a restoration of order would thus restore an inner unity or inner peace to the individual
soul.

Each
of the three women has a personal “war” to fight: Lulu must fight her hatred;
Jamila must fight her ambition and Zahra must fight greed.

The
never-ending echo of The War in the background of their lives suggests that, until
these women can find inner peace on a personal level, universal or world peace
will always remain elusive to mankind.

Wanting to change the world and stop The War, Dawud, Zahra's grandson, goes off to fight The War.

But, Dawud's sacrifice - as was his parents' before him - is meaningless, for The War continues, generation after generation.

But what happens to Lulu, Jamila and Zahra while Dawud is off fighting The War?

Overwhelmed by the minutia of living an ordinary life, the women battle

their "enemy": their emotional wounds and their inner demons in a harsh world that offers little hope of a restoration of order that will bring them the happiness they long for.

But, as the mysterious spiritual guide Enoch says to Lulu, "Make different choices for yourself and you can give mankind a different history."

The theme of “Dancing in the Shadows of Love” is a reflection of the words spoken by Indian politician and pacifist, Mahatma MohandasGandhi (1869-1948): “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him...we need not wait to see what others do.”

Can Lulu, Jamila and Zahra heal their own nature enough to bring peace and harmony to their lives?

Perhaps, when they find the inner peace that spirals ever outward to embrace their community and the world in which they live, then The War that never ends…will end._______________________________________

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About Me

Judy Croome lives and writes in Johannesburg, South Africa. Shortlisted in the African Writing Flash Fiction 2011 competition, Judy’s short stories and poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, such as the Huffington Post and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Itch Magazine. Her books "a stranger in a strange land" (2015); “The Weight of a Feather & Other Stories” (2013); “a Lamp at Midday” (2012) and “Dancing in the Shadows of Love” (2011) are currently available on line. Judy loves her family, cats, exploring the meaning of life, chocolate, cats, rainy days, ancient churches with their ancient graveyards, cats, meditation and solitude. Oh, and cats. Judy loves cats (who already appear to have discovered the meaning of life.) Visit Judy on www.judycroome.com or join her on Twitter @judy_croome